


gathered there for vengeance

by orphan_account



Series: old gods in forgotten kingdoms [6]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Ascension, Changing Perspective, Dreams, Freedom, Gen, Introspection, Major Spoilers, Mind Control, Mind Manipulation, Old Gods, The Infection (Hollow Knight), The Void, To An Extent, but i think it turned out well!, i took a more free approach with this one, it's a bit messy, the sentence structure is more loose and free
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:06:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21837934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Once, perhaps, they had dreamed. They know only the silence.
Relationships: Hornet & The Knight (Hollow Knight), The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & Hornet, The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & The Knight
Series: old gods in forgotten kingdoms [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1505879
Kudos: 48





	gathered there for vengeance

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'death of a naturalist' by seamus heaney, i do not like that poem but the imagery of 'the great slime kings were gathered there for vengeance' is fantastic and played a large part in my inspiration for this.

Once, perhaps, they had dreamed. When they were still young and naive, tucking clatters of thought both transient and not into the back of their rattling skull, where they could be forgotten and left to waste. The ideas would be left to rot and their thoughts would rot and with it, their purity would shiver and withdraw like drooping leaves.

They do not see the point in dreams. They are wastes of things, like the hemolymph that clots on the ruined shells of bugs whose corpses have long become still and quiet, empty remnants of the living in shells holding only light. They are quivering and falling apart, ideas better left forgotten, better left to drip and hide in the dirt where they belong.

Dreams are reminders of  _ Her,  _ if not anything else. They all glow with that same effervescent light, warm and bright, too bright. That glow feels like sinking into a hot spring. Except the hot spring is too hot and the water burns and their very soul has been consumed by something that is not them. But the warmth is soft and gentle and it swaddles them like a blanket.

No. The dreams are not what they want. They Focus, and the dark sheen of void glimmers around them. Descending Dark, half-suspended, as if about to click itself to life and yet terrified of the death that awaits it. The void does not let go of them. It slickens itself until the sheen is a glisten like oil.

That oily substance slims itself down, spreads itself out until the dark and gleam and shine of it covers the chains binding them to the Temple. That darkness is warm even though it is cold, soft and sharp at once, a promise of home and safety bound to a place that reeks of despair and decay.

They think, for a just a second, that perhaps they could be content to contain. The darkness, that void-home-warm that they know intimately, it will protect them. It clicks ─ a slip of a cover for a scream, a howl, a slam of energy ─ and flows over the Temple like a gloss. A balm for the injuries they have suffered.

But could they truly be content? Could they truly be happy? They look around the temple. There is nothing but ruin here, contained in the barest form. Void and infection wear away at the walls, strip it down, now that no seals contain the higher powers within. The infection tears at the walls and begs to be freed from the prison of their shell.

And yet ─ And yet. It does not spread. No orange glow spreads from beyond their eyes; the plants pulsate and beat in a manner untold, to a rhythm that they cannot hear. They do not hear it. Will not, should their resolve hold strong. The tendrils of infection lurch, possessed by some unknown will, stretching out and wrapping around bone. Chitin is scraped up from the floor and held in the almost gentle caress of the orange light.

And yet. It is sealed, free to move only within the confines of the Temple, or so they can assume. It lingers in the cracks of their sibling’s chitin and pulls the rot and remnants of their corpse to the sky; a faceless voice that warped their sibling into something they should never have been, that even now whispers,  _ “HUNT KILL HUNT KILL TEAR” _ , that they push into corners and swathe with dust.

But now ─ it is not just them. The chitin glimmers, still white, regal and respectable and what their sibling may once have been. When they were still Pure, still the grand figure that the whispers spread of, a warm yet imposing figure who the public sought as their monument to hope. They were a monument to despair instead. Infection wraps around it. Her.

She lives, yet, but the effort is feeble. Tremors cascade up her limbs, and they shake like a spider’s. At least that it all they can assume. The snarl painted across her face tells a story of fury; then she turns, and sees the cracks in her fallen sibling’s mask, and the fury twists into something like… grief, or another akin. Emotion ripples through her body and over her mind.

Grief, primarily, followed by the resignation. They do not understand each, simply know names linked to feeling. It is enough to connect the dots and have the impressions linger. The light snaps,  _ “HUNT KILL SHE WILL KILL YOU KILL HER FIRST,”  _ and they know that the light shivers in their eyes. Something new, then, a fear that they cannot explore. It hurts so to know it is directed towards them.

And that ─ that ─ she draws her nail and the flat is enough to slice through it, leave her suspended for a second before she drops down, numb, silent. The silence aches as it lingers, worms its way through the caverns of their mask and into their void-blood. Infection drips from the cut root. Is it a parody of their mother, one designed to mock, to instill fear?

They know that She (She the Light, the Ancient One whose sneer of command is warm and bright) had hated the King and wanted to watch him burn; they known that She has the twinlight burning of two foreign powers, strength mixing in horrendous ways to splinter life into fragmented despair. Does she dare imitate the White Lady, in her regality and withdrawn ways? The thought infuriates.

They still. Glass shatters through the slick spill of void, thrown carelessly around the temple. Their sister, their sister with her red dress and vibrant feeling (such feeling, compared to the dark void of their other siblings), she still lives despite the deep cuts of the Infection against her. She still lives despite the weight of their strongest’s broken body resting on her or on her conscience.

Sister-in-red hisses and pulls herself to her feet. When had she fallen down? They do not know, but their sister laughs and spits at the Infection as it tries to swallow her up. She cannot fight it forever. She will not survive that long; they will live only to watch their single living sibling crushed by the Infection that they were created to destroy.

They will not stand for it. Something shatters in their chest, hollow and vibrant and bright; the voice howls at them,  _ “YOU ARE BUT A TOOL,”  _ and the Infection spills over their eyes. They choke as the orange spills over their mask and through their void body and through their mind and  **_nonono idonotwant ihurthurthurt helphelphelpihurt ─_ **

The chains shatter. Infection spurts from their shell, the cracks and the nooks and every little gap it can find, filling it and spilling over them until they drown. They shriek, a collection of soul pooling above them. It is burning and bright. They crack and splinter into a thousand pieces, calling out for something, someone, they do not know what.

**_i live in the shadows of hearts. i beg and beg and beg for freedom, from that shell of containment, from that mortal shell through which i see and stay alive and burn as they burn. i reach beyond, beyond them, beyond the broken shell of the kingdom. it is mine to rule and mine to destroy. no other being can control me. no other being can control what is mine._ **

**_i do not let them die. i pull the lingering fragments of their will together, bind them so that they may not wander free. i curl my heart into their being and drag them together. they must not die until their duty is fulfilled until i am free until it it it it ─ i do not know what i want. i do not want my shell to die_ **

**_i want the light to burn. i want the light and the pale gone and their influence burnt and this kingdom, mine, mine, my nightmare and my void and my abyss. it is all mine ─ no wyrm or old light deserves this kingdom when they were the ones to leave it to perish._ **

**_my little collectives are broken apart and i left them to die. the wyrm watched them climb and fall and break apart into tiny pieces and i hurt, i hurt, i ache for all those little dying pieces of my whole and the little parts that i am losing. one dies ─ another, another, another ─ they all crumble and break and i scream for them but not one hears the cry. i gather their shells and bury as many as i can. the floor is still made of bone._ **

They hear the call of their whole, and answer it. The world is nothing but a splash of red in inky darkness, a sister living amongst a world of broken siblings.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter @phantomhwa, if you enjoyed this <3


End file.
